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A few weeks ago, I redid the Tour with new redesign screenshots, without making any major changes. It looks “up to date” now, technically, but it got me thinking about whether there could be improvements there. The redesign layout doesn’t quite lend itself to the current Tour in the same way it used to (there’s scrolling down, plus clicking on - it’s a bit tedious, to be honest!). I also looked into the pageviews there and discovered that a vast majority of the people who start the Tour never get to the end. In fact, fewer than 5% of the people who start the Tour reach the last page. This is a bummer, because that’s where all the options and ideas for activities lie! So I thought I’d play around a little with the Tour layout and see whether there were any all-info-in-one-page options that might help people more and give them the answers they need upfront. I’m hopeful that a layout like this might convey the wikiHow philosophies in a quick and meaningful way, while also encouraging people to get stuck right into editing. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far: http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Tour But, there may be other sides to the equation that I’m not seeing, so I’m here asking for feedback! What do you guys think - is a Tour revamp something people would be interested in? Do you think a design like this could help people more, or do you have other suggestions for how to engage people through the end of the Tour? Edit: for clarity if you’re reading this in future: http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Tour now shows the new one page tour http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Tour2 shows the old multi-page one, preserved in case we want it in future (it’s also in the tour edit history of course!)

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Awesome, I’ve been thinking we needed to redo the tour for a while. The thing that made the old tour special and a lot more functional to users was the fact that they could click arrows and play through it like a slideshow, much different than the rest of the site. Would you be switching those sections into clickable arrow and slideshow-like sorts of things, or do you propose they remain stationary and something you would ‘scroll’ through instead? And I assume you already thought about moving the text to center them in the boxes, etc. I feel like the content is a lot more helpful to the readers, though. The presentation may throw them off a bit. And, I assume it would be too much to figure out and engineer so I won’t go and promote the idea too much, but if we could have hands on content like a game or a ‘try editing’ sort of thing, that could be cool. Yahoo Q&A (or whatever the heck they call themselves now) has that absurd point system which they rely on to suck in new users and so forth. We can’t do a point system, but any sort of hands on experience might help them out a little bit and make them more engaged. I love the idea overall.:slight_smile:Thanks, Anna!

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@Confusionist - cool! Yeah, you’re probably right about the centered text - prettier! I just did a reupload with centered text and slightly bigger arrows. What do you think now? Yeah, it’s a shame about not having the clickable arrows on the redesign (that image mapping feature will hopefully come back post media-wiki-upgrade). The reason I went with the all-on-one-page design rather than incorporating that sort of slideshow effect was that, even pre-redesign, folks really weren’t clicking through. It’s a bummer, 'cause overall I like the slideshow/tour feel – but fewer than 5% of new users were getting to the end, even long before the redesign:confused:I’m not certain if this would improve who sees all the info (they do still have to scroll down!), but I figured it might be worth a shot! We can always try this style of info/images in a slideshow format, too, but I suspect that folks will still not click through to the end, since they weren’t doing so before. I’d love it if they did, but people seem to go off elsewhere… maybe some of the cool FAs catch their eye:slight_smile:I looove some of the engineered guided tours that are out there on other sites, and I know @Krystle and others have kicked around ideas along those lines in the past. Some of our engineers actually went to an event to learn more about the future mediawiki goals and designs in that area - interactive features like that - so they do have it in mind! It’s just a bit outside of the scope pre-upgrade (and may even be outside of the up-to-date MW version, I think - but it’s possible in future versions!). So this was just my compromise on improving the tour without engineering, for the short term. But in the long run, I definitely agree that an engineered snazzy version would be even cooler! It’s just not on the cards riiiiight now. Anyone else have any thoughts about this overall alt Tour? Love it, hate it (it’s okay to hate it - I won’t be offended, hah).

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If “multiple pages” aren’t a huge issue… maybe turn it into a ‘yes/no game’… something like http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr\_ln1j4uNLyH1qbcrvbo1\_500.jpg … so the main land page would be like, “Have you heard of or edited on a wiki before?” (Yes link goes to the list of things to do on wikiHow, No link goes to what wikiHow is like http://www.wikihow.com/Image:Tour\_edit\_a\_page\_2.png ) On the bottom of the No link: “Would you like to learn about how to edit on wikiHow?” (Yes link goes to http://www.wikihow.com/Image:Tour\_edit\_mode\_2.png , No link goes to a list of things to do on wikiHow or other really, really basic stuff). And then so on and so forth… and then the “ending page” would ultimately be the things to do on wikiHow page. This is kind of to avoid any “scrolling”… and it gives the person a choice without having to go “all the way to the end” kind of sort of thing. Just a thought…

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I like the idea of a flowing intro like that, @Maluniu ! I actually wonder whether there is potential for them to be two different things – like, there can be a static overview tour that’s sent in the welcomebot message, etc, as well as a yes/no flow kind of intro (possibly in wiki pages, possibly engineered into something snazzier) that might be integrated somewhere along the sign-up process. That way, folks can always have the static tour to refer to later on, if they’ve exited the “flow/game” one, but they get an interactive experience if they’re into that… Not sure, but it’s an idea! I like where you’re going with it. Ideally, we could benefit both sorts of people - the people who like the interactive experience, and those who just want a quick answer/overview but wouldn’t make it to the end of the tour. That way, we can try and increase the info that gets to the people who aren’t clicking beyond the intro page at all: about 30% of people who look at the Start of the Tour never even get from there to page one , and 78% of people drop off before page two , and so on down until it’s under 5% left at the end for page five ). I’m going to keep floating ideas around the Haus, too, to see where engineering might come in on something like that. Maybe this alternative tour (or a different version thereof) can help somewhat, and then we can build on that with other ideas too, particularly when engineering can be involved! If anyone wants to play with more non-engineering ideas in the meantime, though, I’d be all for it!

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I love the idea of a tour revamp! My only suggestion is to remove the “Your wikiHow Journey Starts Here” section header so that the ideas for contributing will be under “There’s Lots to Do”. We do not need an extra section header describing the ways to contribute, when we already have one. The extra section header might be confusing to new contributors.

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Hi Anna… I think it’s fantastic that you’re revamping the tour! While the old one was pretty good… I think your article format is a big improvement. It not only states the action to be taken, but points to the tabs/buttons to click to make it happen. Very nice! Maluniu’s idea is great too… with links to learn more at each step. Perhaps a question of “Want to try this now? Click HERE” sort of link at the end of each section would work as well as a yes/no format.

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The demo looks great! The idea of a flow chart-type thing sounds interesting, too. I think a lot of people would benefit from this. The one criticism I have are the arrows and boxes. I can see how you’re trying to fit it in with the colour scheme, but it seems a bit too blended in. The first two stand out quite well, but when you get to the last two (especially with the green menu bar and app headers), it looks blended in. Also, should we consider updating the welcome message to reflect the revamp? Maybe something more inviting like “Want to get started right away? Check out the wikiHow tour for tips on writing and editing articles!”

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Ok folks, I put the new tour live, and we’ll see how it goes! I’ll keep an eye on the stats so if it backfires we can go back to the old design:slight_smile:And I am definitely still stoked and will keep playing with ideas and asking engineering about more flow-ish, guided tours with Yes/No, etc. There’s great room for a more fun/interactive experience there, I think! I think making the message a bit friendlier is a great idea, @Illneedasaviour - I’ll leave it for now so that we can separate out the two changes (helps to see what works and what doesn’t), but in due course, I hope we can try that out, too!

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I like the idea of making the tour as concise and as quick as possible, nice idea:slight_smile:Also the flow chart idea is a great one, it would be good to see some interactivity. The only major problem I can see in the current form is that all of the text is contained within images - this is a problem for those with visual impairments who use screen readers to navigate the internet - the tour will have no information in it for them:confused:

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@MartynP - You are completely right, and I should know better, because I have a background in assistive tech! I was mainly operating off the idea that so many people are visual learners and action-oriented (“show me, don’t tell me” - etc), without really considering the other side of that coin! But, anyway, I have now also added a text only version, which is linked at the beginning of the main Tour. Can you take a look and see if there’s anything that you think needs adding when there are no images? Hopefully it will be an asset to folks using screenreaders, as well as those with slower connections who don’t want to wait for images to load. Thanks so much for pointing it out!

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@Anna it looks good to me:slight_smile:No problem